


call off your ghost

by Amber_Flicker



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Grieving, M/M, Psychological Horror Elements, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, major character death happens before fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Flicker/pseuds/Amber_Flicker
Summary: Even in death, Eichi cannot leave Keito be.
Relationships: Hasumi Keito/Tenshouin Eichi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	call off your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Dessa song of the same name.

**I.**

There's a sense of _wrong_ in sitting at that desk. Keito has not been able to shake it no matter what he does. It's as sacred a space as Eichi's grave, and even touching it is like disturbing him. Despite how he's departed and how Keito is president now it is still Eichi's Desk. The first week, he tried to sit there. This is the seat of the student council president, he told himself. Maybe you'll feel closer to Eichi this way, he thought. And he did- but not in a good way. There's something deeply unsettling in the way it feels like Eichi has not left, the way that sometimes he swears he sees Eichi standing at the window, sitting at His Desk, illuminated in the sunlight as he so often had been. The way Keito sometimes opens his mouth to speak to him before realizing he isn't there, before _remembering._ The way that even then, he still feels Eichi's presence, somehow.

He doesn't sit there again.

**II.**

fine falls apart after Eichi's death. Himemiya does not deal well with it. Fushimi is unreadable as ever. Hibiki disappears altogether for a couple of weeks after the funeral. When he returns, he tries to keep the unit together as per Eichi's last wish to him, but it's never quite the same. He's more subdued than Keito had ever seen him, like Eichi's death had ripped a hole in his heart as it has Keito's. It's two months before they hold another live, and there's something blatantly missing from the performance. Keito watches it, despite how seeing fine without Him _hurts._ fine had been many things over the past two years, but it had _always_ been Eichi's dream brought to life (-had almost taken his life, at times. funny how it wasn't what did him in, in the end).

The longer he watches, the more it's as if he can see Eichi up there, glowing under the lights. Like he'd never left that empty space on stage and inside his heart. It's all his imagination, he knows, and when he blinks the image fades.

It's only a trick of the light.

**III.**

His habits and behavior start change over time- only little things, some worse than others. Most not even noticeable to anyone who hadn't known both him and Eichi. He switches out his coffee and sometimes even his energy drinks for Eichi's favored blends of tea, his snacks for those that Eichi had liked (many of which Keito had often lectured him about being bad for his health). His mind drifts in class more often; he'd been such an attentive student before, but now he can't help but stare at Eichi's empty seat and think about him, and once that happens he's out of it for the rest of class. Sometimes he sees a glimpse of blond hair out of the corner of his eye, but when he looks over, it's gone, and then he feels like a fool for starting to hope. He starts to keep a closer watch over Himemiya during student council time- he had always been more Eichi's junior than Keito's, but. well... Eichi was not here.

He finds himself doubting that fact more often than he should.

The people closest to him- his unit, his club, even Hibiki, of all people- take notice. Keito begins to distance himself more; he doesn't like how everyone looks at him llike he's going to break down at any moment. He knows it's only out of concern, but it... it doesn't help. He simply needs time, and to stop seeing _him_ everywhere he looks, as much as he doubts that will happen anytime soon.

He hadn't conciously decided to start behaving any differently. It had just happened, and there's something that makes him feel he cannot stop, cannot go back to how he used to be no matter how much time passed, that he wouldn't ever completely get over Eichi's death. Then again, nothing had been the same since it happened- so why should Keito stay exactly the same as he was?

...Maybe, a part of Keito thinks, this would fill the Eichi-shaped hole inside of him.

**IV.**

There are nights that he is woken by the nightmares- the memories- of the day it had happened. Eichi had been more subdued than usual, looking unwell the entire day, but he'd said it was fine. Then it _wasn't._ He'd been rushed to the hospital, but there hadn't been anything they could do. Keito had always known he'd have to watch Eichi die before him; he'd never expected it so soon. He hadn't been prepared, not for the way the white sheets were stained red with the blood Eichi couldn't stop coughing up, not for how, for once, Eichi couldn't pretend he was fine. The way he'd held Keito's hand, like Keito was the one who needed reassurance when he wasn't the one dying. How it had felt when Eichi's grip went slack and his eyes went dull and everything fell apart around him-

He always wakes after that. It doesn't feel much like the nightmare has ended.

And then are are the nights where he lays there, sleepless, and feels nothing but empty. In a way he hadn't realized just how much of himself had been entirely devoted to Eichi. Without him here, everything feels a little colder, a little more pointless. There's a night, once, when it's so terrible that he finds himself thinking about simply ending it. He's tired and empty and there's a distinct wrongness in imagining a life without Eichi, in thinking about the years and years he'll have to go through feeling like this.

He thinks of Eichi next to him bathed in the moonlight, can hear his voice telling him to come join him. He can feel him pulling. Keito gets up without even thinking about it, unable to draw his attention away from that siren call, those brilliant blue eyes, and the thought of finally being happy again. Then he snaps out of it.

He closes the curtains.

**V.**

He visits Eichi's grave a few months after it happens. It's the first time he's been there since the funeral. He cleans the headstone carefully- still tending to Eichi's needs even if he's no longer here- before he places the flowers around it. He thinks Eichi would appreciate the thought put into the pink and white camellias he'd chosen. Keito stands there for a while in silence.

"You don't intend to let me be, do you," he says.

"You wouldn't want me to," Eichi sits on his own headstone, smiling as serenely as ever. Perhaps it's because Keito has always been surrounded by death, that he isn't as put off by any of this as he should be. Or perhaps he's just that in love with Eichi; he'll take him in any way he can.

The next time he looks, Eichi isn't there. And yet Keito feels the weight of his presence just as much, the same unsettling yet familiar feeling he gets each time he sees Eichi's desk and late at night. 

Eichi will never truly leave him. 

Keito isn't sure if that's a comfort or a burden.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I don't like fics where Eichi dies  
> Also me: *writes a fic where Eichi dies*
> 
> Is he actually being haunted or is he hallucinating? Idk
> 
> @amber_flicker on twitter


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